Nowhere to Run
by Nyghtraven
Summary: Written during one of my particularly dark, philosophical moods while I pondered what Revan's fate might have been if she hadn't succeeded when she left for the unknown regions. Fair warning: Character death portrayed.


_Where do you go when there's no place left to run? Who do you turn to when you are all alone? What do you do when you run out of lies to tell yourself?_

* * *

Silence. That hardly surprised her as she turned her head, listening for sounds that weren't there. There was nothing to give her any sense of what her captors had planned. A mirthless chuckle escaped her lips, she already knew, at least in part. She accepted that her death would not be quick, easy, or painless. It wasn't their style. She knew that much, she had used such tactics before when she had learned from them. They would kill her slowly, wanting to see her _break_ before her life ended.

Out of habit, Revan opened her eyes, only to be starkly reminded why it was a pointless action. Around her there was nothing but the absolute, endless darkness that came from blindness. She closed her eyes again and sighed. That had been one of the first things they had taken from her, the physical ability to see. True, she could still 'see' with the Force, but she knew that act had only been the beginning. It would only get worse.

She had lost all track of time in the silent dark that had become her existence. Somewhere deep in the darkness, her mind drifted off. Slowly, like the faint whisper of a breeze, the ghosts of her past began to surround her. Nightmares she thought she had once forgotten came back, ripping and clawing at the edges of her thoughts. There in the deafening silence of her prison the memories came flooding back, no matter how hard she tried to fight them.

* * *

"Revan!"

The panic in the boy's voice brought her to a sharp halt and she spun around. He had lost his footing on the rocky slope they had been climbing and was clinging to an outcrop for dear life, terrified of falling. Bracing herself, she reached over the edge and grabbed him and pulled him back up to safety.

"Come on, Alek, I told you to be careful." She spoke sternly.

"I'm sorry, Revan. The rocks slipped under my feet."

With a reassuring smile, she placed a hand on his shoulder. "Never mind, let's go."

Alek paused for a moment to run his fingers through his sandy blond hair, his bright green eyes following his friend's movement. Taking a deep breath, he scrambled after her, not wanting to be left behind.

They had become a nearly inseparable pair soon after the two youths met on Dantooine. He was taller and stronger, but she was the fearless one, the one with all the plans. He followed her faithfully, not wanting to ever disappoint her.

Finally reaching the ledge Revan had found, Alek settled down beside his friend as they watched the sun slowly begin to set.

"Revan? Promise we'll always be friends?"

She looked over at him, flashing that confident, charismatic grin. "Of course, Alek, we'll be friends forever."

He smiled, content to just be at her side.

Sightless eyes blinked back tears as her heart recoiled from the long buried memory. Shaking her head in a futile effort to drive the memories away, Revan felt the insidious gnawing of guilt. As the image of Alek's innocent young face faded, it was replaced by the angry, twisted visage of Darth Malak. His once warm green eyes forever changed to the cold yellowish hue of those claimed by the dark side.

She had led him down that path, and while she told herself she was strong enough not to fall, she should have known he would not be. Always he had followed her, he _trusted_ her, and she had failed him. Even at the last, when she knelt beside him as the last of his life flickered out. She might have been able to save him, but instead she let him die. His blood was on her hands, no matter how much she tried to justify it.

Revan slammed her fist into the cold, unforgiving stone wall she was leaning against. The sharp pain offered only the briefest respite from the countless ghosts of her past. Feeling her chest tightening as she tried to take a deep breath, Revan only now noticed she was shaking. Why? Was it the cold, or was it fear? Defiantly, she blamed the cold and exhaustion, weakness growing from the lack of food since her capture.

She backed up into the corner of her cell and slowly slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Unconsciously she blinked against the darkness that surrounded her. She leaned her head back against the stone wall with a resigned sigh. _Where had it all gone so terribly wrong?_

* * *

The scrapping sound of boots against stone and the metallic click of the lock told her that her captors had come to visit. She laughed as they roughly dragged her from the cell. She was disoriented, unable to discern any sense of direction as they walked her through their stronghold. Finally they stopped and she was shoved forward. Disoriented and weary as she was, Revan fell hard, hissing as the pain jarred her body.

Suddenly her body was engulfed in merciless, unending waves of pain. Pain that was more terrifying than anything she had ever experience. Her mind struggled to resist, tried to block that excruciating horror out. Relentless and uncaring, her captors continued the torture, perhaps even delighting in it as she once had when the roles had been reversed.

Vaguely her mind registered the taste of blood but it was pushed aside as unimportant. Trained by a lifetime of connection to the Force, Revan sought comfort in that ever constant presence. The relentless onslaught of pain firmly blocked any attempt she made to touch the Force. Gradually as the hours passed by the outer threads of her sanity slowly began to unravel.

Collapsing onto the floor of her cell as she heard the door being locked behind her, Revan shivered with the cold and the bone deep exhaustion that had drained her strength. Unwilling to even attempt to move, Revan lay still, grateful for the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness that wrapped itself around her. At least for a short time, she didn't need to think about anything.

* * *

Gradually, like the subtle shifting of light across the sky as dawn breaks, awareness finally returned and Revan stifled a groan. Slowly, gingerly she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Every muscle and nerve in her body protested the movement. Her breath came in ragged gasps and just the thought of swallowing hurt.

After what seemed like an eternity, she had managed to work her way to the wall of her prison. Leaning back against the wall, she tried once more to block the rippling agony from her mind. The torture session had scrambled her nerves and her mind enough that she was finding it difficult to focus and call upon the Force to ease her pain.

Her mind hazed and confused, she found herself blinking at the image that formed in front of her.

"Bastila?" Her voice cracked, barely above a whisper.

Only then did she notice the cold, hateful look in those grey eyes as the image of Bastila faced her. An angry, accusing glare froze Revan in place.

"How could you, Revan? How could you betray me? I needed you, I _trusted_ you? _You_ of all people knew I wasn't strong enough to face Malak, to resist what he put me through. You could have saved me, helped me, but you didn't. Where were you when I needed you most? I fell, swallowed up by the darkness, _your_ darkness, because of the bond we shared. You let me die; you killed me instead of helping me."

"I tried…"

"You should have tried _harder_."

The image of Bastila faded, leaving her alone in the dark again. Revan swallowed hard, Bastila's words stinging like a thousand tiny daggers in her heart and mind. She had failed the girl, completely and utterly. Bastila could not have been prepared for what happened; it shouldn't have been her that suffered. Bastila fell because of her, just as Malak had. They both had trusted her and she let them down.

* * *

Revan could no longer sleep, not that it really mattered. The nightmares came anyway; trapped in her permanently dark world she couldn't escape them. She flinched at the sound of the door being unlocked again. Dread washed over her in a tidal wave. The torture sessions had been growing increasingly brutal, and she fervently wished she could just melt into the stone around her.

This time though, it seemed like her captors dragged her to some place new, or was she just imagining things? Soon any shred of though vanished as the pain seared its way through every fiber of her being. Suddenly, even over the horrible pain, Revan felt a new sensation. A deeper agony washed over her as it felt like her very soul was being ripped from her. Panic gripped her as comprehension dawned. Her connection to the Force was being severed, brutally. Revan screamed, unable to withstand anymore and she collapsed into the waiting arms of oblivion once again.

Sharp pains echoing the short, ragged breaths eventually broke through the haze of unconsciousness. Revan lay still, shifting her body just enough to allow her to breath with slightly less pain. Hoping that it had all been just another nightmare, she tentatively reached out for the Force. Tears slowly drifted down her cheeks when her mind met only emptiness. There was nothing, the connection she had felt all her life was gone. She felt very weak and vulnerable, and now without the blanket of the Force around her, every ache and hurt seemed amplified.

Revan found herself staring into the empty, haunted eyes of Kilanna, her most loyal and trusted general, second only to Malak. They had also become friends over the course of the War. Now she understood that look in the girl's eyes. Revan had given her the order to destroy Malachor V and Kilanna had done so, but practically destroyed herself in the process. She had felt every single death through the Force and Kilanna's mind and body did the only thing possible to help her survive. Her connection to the force was severed; she cut herself off so that she no longer felt that pain.

With a heavy sigh, Revan cursed herself, that it would take _this_ for her to know, to truly understand what her decisions had put her friend through. Kilanna, like Malak and Bastila, had trusted her, and like them, Revan realized that she had completely failed and betrayed another friend. She swallowed hard against the lump of guilt in her throat as she remembered Kilanna before Malachor, and then to think of her after… It had taken a week before the girl would even speak about it. When she did, she had announced that she was leaving, to return to the Council to answer for her actions. The way Kilanna's eyes changed, to see her bright blue eyes go dull, to see that soul deep emptiness in her friend's eyes hurt.

 _It would have been kinder if I had killed her. She trusted me, and she didn't deserve to suffer that._

* * *

Huddled into the far corner of her cell, Revan wondered when the end would come. Her captors probably would enjoy seeing her beg for death. Shaking her head, she knew that would be the one thing she would never give them. Briefly Revan considered the possibility that even though she had been stripped of her ability to sense the Force; this was very likely the Force's idea of pay back. For all the things she had done in her life, all the lives she had destroyed, all the pain and suffering she had caused; perhaps she deserved her fate now.

Revan shifted slightly. She was growing increasingly miserable without the benefit of the Force to comfort her aching body. The stabbing pains of hunger also reminded her of the absence of the Force which had helped to sustain her and let her ignore the hunger. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd eaten anything. Growling with anger and frustration, Revan tried to push such thoughts out of her mind, dwelling on it only made it worse.

She sighed, her mind was beginning to feel fragmented and that was starting to worry her. Whenever she focused too hard on trying to remember something, it seemed to slip just out of reach. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be affecting the nightmares that plagued her with increasing ferocity. It no longer mattered that she was blind, it didn't matter if her eyes were open or closed; the nightmares were there. Countless ghosts from her past, all those whose lives she had somehow destroyed, all lingered at the edge of her thoughts, haunting her.

* * *

No matter how hard she tried to push it away, one face kept coming back to her. Revan could still remember the hurt look in his eyes when she said she was leaving. Part of her would have been content to stay, but another part knew she had to leave. Although, considering her current condition, perhaps she should have stayed with him after all.

A weak smile flickered across her weary features as she remembered the warmth in his smile and his deep brown eyes. Regret wrapped itself tightly around her heart and she was reminded that it was probably for the best. The Republic would need Carth, especially since she had failed in her quest.

Closing her eyes against more unwanted tears, she couldn't deny that of all the people in her life, Carth was the one that got to her the most. Despite the guilt she felt for all the others, she truly regretted hurting him above all. It had been so hard for him to trust anyone, and somehow she had found herself wanting his trust. She'd never cared before that, she was used to people just trusting her and doing what she wanted. He was different, and remembering him telling her that he loved her, that hurt most of all. She wanted to love him, she _had_ loved him, but she couldn't allow herself to stay and she hated herself for being the one to break his heart all over again.

 _How did everything get so complicated?_

* * *

The sound of her cell being unlocked jarred her mind out of its aimless wandering. Revan groaned as she was jerked roughly to her feet and dragged off again. When her captors stopped, she felt herself being held tightly in place. Despite the now almost constant haze of confusion that settled over her conscious mind, she felt the brief twinge of pain as something was injected into her veins. Poison? Something registered the thought; it had to be poison and without the Force to aid her, she would be unable to fight it.

The captors holding her up let go and Revan collapsed unceremoniously to the floor. _So this is how it ends?_ she thought ruefully. Hero of the Republic, former Sith Lord… she sighed. She knew the titles meant nothing now, she even wondered if she really ever deserved them. Vaguely aware that the poison was working its way through her body, Revan tried one last time to focus her mind.

Revan thought back over everything she had done, what she had tried to accomplish, and she wondered if it had been worth it. Along the way she had always been able to justify the sacrifices as necessary as long as the end result was achieved. Had she really accomplished anything? As her life slowly ebbed away from her in this dark place, was it worth it?

She was struggling to breathe now, and she wondered if those she had left behind would ever be able to forgive her. Did she even deserve forgiveness? Faces flashed through her mind one last time. So much to regret, but it was too late to change anything now. Nothing mattered now, it was over.

 _It is such a quiet thing to fall, but far more terrible to admit it._ She couldn't really remember where she'd heard it, but now, at the end, she understood it.

* * *

Far across the space of the galaxy a man felt his heart break as he felt her die.

"Good bye, Beautiful." He whispered.


End file.
